Many investment firms recommend a periodic rebalancing of one's portfolio. Let’s look at what rebalancing means and why you’ll not see me taking their approach. What does it mean to rebalance a portfolio? Rebalancing a portfolio is an asset allocation strategy. Assets...
What is the future of Chinese stocks in U.S. Exchanges? It is no secret that China's overall strategy is to become the main player in world economics. And, we in the U.S. shouldn't be surprised at this ambition. China is the world's most populous country. The stock...
If you've been investing for any length of time, you've probably owned some mutual funds. And many wonder which is better -- mutual funds vs individual stocks. While first founded in 1924, the mass adoption of mutual funds in the 1980s was game-changing for individual...
So, what is a Bubble? A bubble is a rapid, unjustified acceleration in the price of something. The price uptick is typically driven by excitement or implausible assumptions about the asset's future. When investors pay prices exceeding an asset's true intrinsic value,...
When it comes to investing, there are many ways to skin a cat, like my friend likes to say. Investing is a discipline that has many different styles and variations. Whatever the style or variation, whether it's value investing or futures trading, there is a process....
"You never know who's swimming naked until the tide goes out..." This is one of my favorite Warren Buffett quotes. What on earth does that have to do with investing, you might ask? Well, you never really know how exposed your investment positions are until they are...
Where Are We Today? A Sense of History As someone who has been in the markets for at least 35 years now, I've realized just how important it is to have a sense of history. Of course, that knowledge is not a prerequisite for participation in the markets or even taking...
Here's a call I always hated to get in the past from clients: "Hey Steve, I've got this annuity and would like to do something with it. Can you help me?" Unfortunately, my answer was usually, "Probably not." You see, annuities and other insurance based products have...
The Nixon penny. A product of the early 1970’s. I'm old enough to remember it. The incredible shrinking pocket book. Inflation was running wild. The cost of everything was going up. Gas, bread, housing, you name it. Are we returning to the 1970’s? It almost seems like...
John Hughes was mystified. He had been in the insurance industry for 30 years, but he had never seen anything quite like this. His prospective client owned nearly 30 separate life insurance products! All with different amounts and various features. The man was...